Remembering Rabindranath Tagore Volume - High Commission of ...

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Remembering Rabindranath Tagore
of the work Dharmapala was engaged in for the cause of Buddhism in India (4) . We find
in Daharmapala’s writings of the early years of the 20th century many complimentary
references to the Bengalis (5) .
When Rabindranath Tagore founded that great seat of learning and centre of art,
Santiniketan, in Bholpur near Calcutta, the interest in Buddhism created in his young days
prompted him to include the Pali language and Buddhism as subjects of study. Pandit
Vidhu Shekhara Sastri compiled a Pali Reader to help Bengali students to learn the language
and he is said to have helped Rabindranath’s son to translate into Bengali the Life of the
Buddha (Buddhacaritha) compiled in Sanskrit by Asvaghosa. (6) The University of Calcutta
by this time had become a famous seat of learning and great scholars such as Sir Ashutosh
Mookerjee inaugurated post-graduate studies at Calcutta attracting students from many
parts of Asia including Sri Lanka. D.B. Jayatilaka, a great Sinhala scholar who eventually
was to become one of the leading figures in the national politics of the island was one of
the early students in Calcutta. It is said that Sir Ashutosh gave strong support to Anagarika
Dharmapala in founding the Maha Bodhi Vihara at the College Square in 1919 and at its
inauguration ceremony Rabindranath Tagore too sent a felicitation message (7) .
During the early 1920’s , Tagore, prompted by his profound respect for Buddhism, got down
to Santiniketan one Maha Stavira, an erudite Buddhist monk, to teach Ahidharma, Buddhist
metaphysics. By this time the Bengal Buddhist Association had been formed in Calcutta and
a lively cultural and spiritual collaboration between India and Sri Lanka had been sponsored
by Dharmapala, Sir Ashutosh and Tagore. It is on record that when Tagore founded the
International University of Visva Bharati in 1921, he had made adequate provision for the
study of both Theravada Buddhism, as found in Pali texts, as well as of Mahayana Buddhism
as found in the texts written in Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese and Central Asian languages (8) .
During this time Tagore as well as Dharmapala had invited Buddhist monks to come and
study in Calcutta. Some such were Rev. Rambukwelle Siddhartha, who later became a
lecturer in the Ceylon University College (which was the first university institution in the
island and was an affiliate of the University of London), Rev. Udakendawela Saranamkara,
who got attracted by the Marxist movement in Bengal and eventually became a prominent
member of the Ceylon Communist Party, and Rev. Bamabaraede Sivali, who studied at Kasi
Vidyapeeth in Benares and returned to Sri Lanka to be a teacher at Vidyalamkara Pirivena,
one of the leading institutions of Buddhist learning in the island.
Rabindranath Tagore’s fascination with Sri Lanka seems to have been prompted by two
factors. One was the generally held belief, in Sri Lanka as well as India, that the Sinhala people,
who form the preponderant majority of Sri Lankans, were descended from immigrants
from Bengal. This idea is expressed by Dharmapala in many of his writings and Dr. C.W.W.
Kannanagara, the Minister of Education in the 1940’s, states in one of his writings that “
the Sinhalese race is proud to trace its connection to the ancient people that dwelt in the
plains of Bengal.” Furthermore it was his belief that Tagore himself “treated Lanka as a